Daniel Radcliffe and the director of his new movie argue why we need to rethink terrorism

Daniel
Ragussis (left) and Daniel Radcliffe at the TimesTalks event for
"Imperium."Nicola
Bailey

Daniel Radcliffe will make you give terrorism and white supremacy
another thought. Really.

The actor everyone (still) knows as Harry Potter gives
a surprisingly nuanced performance while playing a young FBI
agent who goes undercover as a white supremacist in
his new film "Imperium," in theaters Friday —
sporting an American accent and a shaved
head.

Just when you think the white
supremacists, who often literally tower over Radcliffe, are about
to discover his plan, Radcliffe's Nate steers them the other way
or talks his way out of a boiling situation.

Director Daniel Ragussis says he spent three years on the
project, from research to conception, while filming only took 25
days. Ragussis cowrote the film with Michael German, a former FBI
agent on whom the story is based.

Business Insider sat down with Radcliffe and Ragussis before a
TimesTalks to discuss the problem with the label terrorism, what
it takes to be a good undercover agent, and trying to talk to
white supremacists.

I grew up with an awareness that terrorists come from everywhere.

Meryl Gottlieb: I saw the movie, and it’s pretty
intense.

Daniel Radcliffe:Yes, absolutely. I know "enjoy" is not quite
the right word but I hope you got something out of it.

Gottlieb: I did, but I’m curious what drew you to the
role since it is so heavy?

Radcliffe:I’ve
read a lot of scripts where they set the character up as being
smart and that’s how he solves problems and then in the last
third of the movie they just give up on that and give him a gun
and it becomes all action and you think, "Oh just go and bloody
stick to it," and this film actually stuck to that the whole way
through. And then once I’d spoken to Dan Ragussis about the world
and to Mike German, it became even more fascinating and felt like
something that was really worth talking about and
portraying.

When I first read it, it was
around the time that
Dylann Roof happened and there was a real reticence on the
part of FBI officialdom to refer to that as terrorism... My dad’s
from northern Ireland, he grew up during the troubles, I grew up
with an awareness that terrorists come from everywhere and have
all sorts of motivations and so it seemed like that was a very
relevant thing, but I don’t think either of us envisaged that
white supremacy might take this sort of bizarre jag towards the
mainstream or rather that the mainstream might jag toward that by
the time it came out.

Gottlieb: How do you think this movie affected the way
you see terrorism then?

Daniel Ragussis: The main thing that I learned in terms
of working with Mike is that it seems to be, at least in the way
that it’s applied, a very subjective definition and one that’s
often unfortunately politically motivated, and I say
unfortunately because there probably should be a lot more
consistency in terms of how we look at those things. Whether we
call something terrorism or not has a great impact as to the way
the law enforcement community approaches it, the way that the
media approaches it, public policy approaches it and so
unfortunately the choice of words becomes an incredibly important
thing in terms of how our society deals with and views the
issue.

Radcliffe:[Homicides] are not all politically
motivated but it instills terror and in that sense it is. Any
kind of murder with any sort of political or religious ideology
could be defined as terrorism but as you [points to
Ragussis] say, that has so much sway over how people deal
with stuff and actually it might be much more useful to just
start referring to all gun crimes as a form of terrorism

It might be much more useful to just start referring to all gun
crimes as a form of terrorism.

, because at this point it does
always almost feel like a political statement of some
kind.

Ragussis:It can
cut both ways because on the one hand, certain crimes probably
are not getting a certain kind of attention — like the Dylann
Roof example — because they’re not labeled as terrorism. Certain
crimes that are labeled as terrorism are getting such undue
attention and attention that really affects the political
discourse in such a way as to do all sorts of things: create laws
that invade our civil liberties, which is a topic that
[gestures to Radcliffe]...

Radcliffe:I’m
in a play about that, yeah ["Privacy" at The Public
Theater].

Ragussis:Yeah
exactly, so it has this massive outsize impact upon our
government, our laws, the nature of our society, so it's a tricky
thing because it’s sort of a very selective attention that can
work both towards good or bad for the society.

Daniel Radcliffe in
"Imperium."Lionsgate

Gottlieb: To me, going undercover seems like
acting.

Radcliffe:I
made the same assumption... but actually what you do, you
have to be able to maintain all the time, so it’s much easier to
just be yourself — be a version of yourself that also happens to
hold these views. Mike just went in and was very much him. I
think he gained almost a reputation or nickname of being called
something like the "Hippie Nazi" because he was so chill and
would never engage with people. That was his whole
thing.

Ragussis: You want to have good relationships and
be friends with everyone. You don’t want to be alienating one
particular person or group both for your own safety and also for
the purposes of the investigation. You don’t know which of those
eight guys is actually going to be the guy that you want to
foster a relationship with and follow deeper into and all the
rest of it. So you actually have to use charm, social skills —
you have to be the guy that everybody likes.

Radcliffe:And
he said he was just incredibly helpful.

Ragussis:Yeah
like he would do the dishes.

Radcliffe:Also
I would like to say, Mike was doing this at a very different time
than we’ve set the movie in, so Mike was doing it with like a big
Casio cassette player strapped to his ankle the whole time
and he had to go and flip the tape every 90 minutes.

Gottlieb: That’s a lot more pressure than the
wristwatch [which Nate wears to secrety record his meetings with
the white supremacists].

Radcliffe:I’m
wondering if the advent of the internet and social media has made
it almost impossible for an undercover to go undercover more than
once because Mike did multiple things for like 12-15
years.

Ragussis:Right
because it’s spread so rapidly.

Gottlieb: You’d be outed on forums and other online
resources.

Ragussis:Exactly, and then you also have to appear at
the trial, so once you’re outed in that way, I don’t know how you
repeat. That is a good question.

Radcliffe:Yeah,
we should ask him [laughs].

Toni
Collette's Angela convinces Daniel Radcliffe's Nate he has what
it takes to go undercover in "Imperium."Lionsgate

Gottlieb: If you are playing a version of yourself who
has these values, with something so extreme as white supremacy,
how do you incorporate that into yourself?

Radcliffe:I
don’t. As an actor, I don’t believe that I have to try and live
this the whole time at all... Also, I think it’s fair to say,
Mike is much smarter than the average person at this, so Mike’s
ability and Nate’s, my character’s, ability to read and digest
all of this — the world of information and all of that stuff —
and to parrot it. Most of these guys, as long as you’re agreeing
with them, no one’s going to question how much you believe in
it.

Ragussis:There’s also a reason that these ideologies
are appealing to people. There’s a certain sense of simplicity
and consistency about them and once you accept a few basic
premises, then you’re able to construct a worldview that’s very
coherent and consistent... These are ideologies that were
appealing to masses of people back in Nazi Germany all the
time.

Radcliffe:I
think my biggest takeaway from this film is that as much as we
want to demonize these people and in a way demonize their views,
we should try and find a way of getting them into this
conversation

As much as we want to demonize these people and in a way demonize
their views, we should try and find a way of getting them into
this conversation.

unfortunately, as awful as that
sounds, because the more you ostracize them and aggressively
dismiss them, the more it just plays into their worldview that
everything is a conspiracy against them... I think we have to try
and believe that there are some people out there that in the
right circumstances could have their minds change and recount
this terrifying belief system.

Ragussis:And as
with anything else, I don’t really know how you confront it or
deal with it unless there’s some level of understanding of what
it is that you’re dealing with. The problem with terms like
“monster” is they don’t give you any understanding. They don’t
give you any access as to the mechanism that’s going on there and
why the people are behaving the way they are. I think if you’re
going to try to dismantle that or change it, you have to
understand what’s going on and what’s happening

Radcliffe:Absolutely, you have to engage with
it.

Daniel Radcliffe in
"Imperium."Lionsgate

Gottlieb: The idea of leader-less resistance, that plays
into that. It’s not just one uniform group.

Radcliffe:Leader-less resistance should be called out
for what it is, which is a mechanism for the higher-ups of these
organizations to not get their hands dirty. That’s why this
exists. It’s not like a lone-wolf phenomenon. They encourage this
lone-wolf phenomenon because it means that people enacting their
worldview without them ever having to actually commit a crime —
people like Tracy Letts’ character in the film.

Ragussis:It’s
very convenient for the ideological leadership. They’re basically
able to sit there and write pamphlets and make speeches and do
all sorts of other things

Gottlieb: Host radio shows…

Ragussis:Exactly. And get a great deal of affirmation
and approbation and even money and all the rest of it without
actually committing crimes or putting themselves at risk or
anything else. In some ways it’s a very cynical viewpoint from
the leadership.

Radcliffe:Weird
to think of these guys as being cynical [laughs].

Ragussis: [laughing] They’re not all true
idealists.

Radcliffe:But that is a point that the film
makes as well. This world is a mix of true believers and
opportunists who are capitalizing on other people’s
fears.